A Screenburn Original · Sweet contemporary romance · New
One Star for the Chef
A food critic whose review closed a small-town restaurant hides in that town under another name and ends up cooking in the kitchen of the chef whose mother lost everything. Nobody has read her original draft.
Screenburn Certified
Score 83 out of 100. Nothing below 80 carries this mark.
Every sale includes the Screenburn Certified branding pack: the mark, the score card and an end-card credit. Use it or leave it out.
Paywall-Ready
Structure strip
Platforms set the paywall. In the CherryBowl catalogue the median ReelShort series unlocks after episode 10, and this script carries a hook at 5, 10 and 15, so it is ready wherever the paywall lands.
- Tension, scored per episode
- Episode ending
- Paywall points
- Median paywall
- Free episodes
- Paid episodes
The Screenburn structure standard
Every script here is built to the Screenburn structure standard: eight rules for how a vertical series opens, turns and ends, applied to every episode and to the season as a whole. We publish the results, not the rules. The score and the strip show them.
Production
Suitable for live-action or AI-hybrid production.
- Cast size
- 8 speaking roles
- Locations
- 11
- Page count
- 213 pages
- Episodes
- 80
- Episode runtime
- About 120 seconds
- Total runtime
- 2 h 40 min
- Genres and tropes
- Sweet contemporary romance
- Language
- English
What you get
- The full scriptAll 80 episodes, as PDF and Final Draft files.
- The treatmentThe story of the season in prose.
- The episode-by-episode arcWhat happens in each episode, and where each hook falls.
- Character breakdownsOne for each of the 8 speaking roles.
- The licenceExclusive, worldwide, all languages, in perpetuity.
- The branding packThe Screenburn Certified mark, the score card and an end-card credit. Use it or leave it out.
- The authorship record and timestampWho wrote the script, and proof of the date of its final files.
Retention-Graded
Score breakdown
83out of 100
Screenburn Certified
Every number here is on one curve: 100 stays 100 and 70 becomes 85. The four parts, weighted, make the total. Nothing below 80 carries the Certified mark.
- Opening
- 68 (30%)The opening of episode one.
- Endings
- 94 (30%)The end of every episode.
- New information
- 80 (20%)How often each episode gives the viewer something new.
- Shape
- 92 (20%)How the tension builds across the season.
Binge-Certified
Branding pack
Every sale includes it. Use it or leave it out.
Screenburn Certified
One Star for the Chef
83/100
- Opening68
- Endings94
- New information80
- Shape92
Paywall-Ready · Retention-Graded · Binge-Certified
Written by Cole Hartigan.
A Screenburn Original.
Licence terms
Every sale carries the same terms.
- Licence
- Exclusive and worldwide. The licence lets you produce the vertical format, and remakes of it, in all languages and in perpetuity.
- The author keeps
- Copyright, and the film, TV, book and other rights.
- Sequel
- You have first refusal on a sequel for twelve months.
- Reversion
- If you shoot nothing within 24 months, the rights return to the author.
- Warranty
- We warrant the originality of the script. Our liability under that warranty stops at the price you paid.
- How the scripts are written
- Screenburn Originals are written under Screenburn's editorial direction using the Screenburn method, which includes AI writing tools for analysis, structure, writing, and other practices. Screenburn owns the copyright; the pen name in the credit is a house credit.
- Credit
- On screen: "Written by [name]. A Screenburn Original."
- Law
- English law governs the licence.
- Price
- A fixed price per script, by card or invoice.
Sales are final once the script is delivered. A wrong file is replaced.
Screening room
One Star for the ChefEpisode one
Free to read · Cole Hartigan · about 120 seconds on screen
INT. BEA'S DINER - NIGHT
Harbor Street, Penrose Harbor, Maine. Rain on the front window. A clock over the pass reads twenty to ten. Six stools, four booths, nobody in them. A card by the register: SPECIAL, HADDOCK CHOWDER AND A BISCUIT, NINE DOLLARS. Behind the register a tide calendar, the page at SEPTEMBER, the days crossed off in pencil to the eighth. Through the glass, across the street, a dark restaurant with a card in its door: CLOSED. ASK THE CRITIC.
HANNAH REYES, 29, dark hair cut short, a wet coat, one canvas bag over her shoulder, takes the stool at the end of the counter and sets the bag at her feet.
BEA TANNER, 60, a grey braid, reading glasses on a cord, a small key on a chain at her neck, puts a glass of water in front of her.
BEA
Kitchen shuts in twenty minutes.
HANNAH
The special.
BEA
Name for the ticket.
HANNAH
Annie. Marsh.
Bea writes it on the pad. She ladles chowder into a bowl, splits a biscuit and sets it down. She stays at the counter and watches. Hannah takes a spoon of broth alone. Then a piece of fish alone. Then both together. She puts the spoon down and looks past Bea at the dark window across the street.
HANNAH
What happened over there?
BEA
A review. The owner died. The review came out a week after and that was that.
Hannah keeps her face to the glass. Behind the counter Bea turns a key in the second drawer under the register, pulls the key out and drops it inside her collar. Hannah turns back. Bea is wiping the counter.
BEA
There's a room upstairs. Twelve a night. You wash up.
Bea slides a brass key across the counter. Hannah puts her hand over it.
The door opens. CAL MOREAU, 34, broad and quiet, burn scars along both forearms, flour dried on one sleeve, comes in out of the rain and takes the stool nearest the door. Bea pours him a coffee without asking. He looks at Hannah's bowl, then at the spoon, then at her.
CAL
She's shut.
BEA
She's eating.
Hannah picks up the spoon and takes another spoon of broth, alone, and holds it in her mouth before she swallows.
CAL
You eat like someone is paying you to.
Hannah's spoon stops halfway back to the bowl.
End of episode one.
Screenburn Originals
Paywall-Ready. Retention-Graded. Binge-Certified.
© 2026 Screenburn Group. English law governs every licence.